How can we best learn life’s secrets during our short lives? Is the best student the one with eyes fixed on the words in a book or focused on the world around them? That is the fundamental question of this profound short tale.

Often, it is the shortest stories that impart the most profound notions. This tale is one of many thoughtful, brief short stories penned by late 19th-century American feminist author Kate Chopin. Chopin was a prolific writer, who published more than 100 short stories and novels before her death in 1904.